Ouassima Boujrad
Fez - Every year, Moroccan TV channels launch new programs, films, documentaries, and sitcoms during the holy month of Ramadan hoping for success and fearing failure.
2014 marked a failure for the Aloula Moroccan TV channel, according to Faiçal Laraishi, the president of Société National de Radio diffusion. Laraishi announced that Aloula had experienced a record drop in viewers compared to last year, from 10.1% to 6.8% of viewers.
This Ramadan, Moroccan viewers criticized Aloula for not meeting the needs of the new generation of viewers, asserting that the artistic product was not adequate nor was it widely shared or advertised in social networks such as FaceBook or Twitter. In contrast, programs and sitcoms on 2M became popular on those online sites.
Sitcoms: like “lcouple,” “Kenza f douar” have played an immense role in boosting the ratings of 2M, as the most watched channel among all the Moroccan national channels.
According to Maroc metry, “Kenza f douar” attained the first place with 62%, with more than 9 million viewers, followed by “Jar wa Majror” with 8.5 million viewers, with the “lcouple” series attracted 8 million viewers, followed by “Zina” and “Mra w gadda.”
However, particularly during the time of breaking of the fast, Aloula did not even receive 4% of the audience, a disastrous statistic that it has never seen before.
According to“Maroc metry,” the series presented on Aloula entitled “Bent nass” grasped 1,800,000 views whereas “kenza f douar” aired on 2M earned 10 million viewers, a huge difference.
Aloula may not be experiencing just a temporary crisis, given that not only are its sitcoms and films sliding, but so also is the evening news that previously was capturing 4 million viewers but currently is not garnering even 1 million viewers. In contrast, the 2M evening news has 4.5 million viewers.
All in all, the national channels gather a high proportion of viewers with 58.3% more than foreign channels which attract 41.7% of the Moroccan audience.